Arnold has a brilliant plan to fix the California economy. At least I thought it was on first glance. The headlines read that he was going to save the state money by cutting the pay of state employees. That sounded like a good idea to me. State employees are typically overpaid, as is any government employee, thanks to bureaucratic economics. Bureaucratic economics is the "if there's money, spend it" attitude that the entirety of our bloatedly huge government uses, on every level. It's all about next year's budget. If you don't use all of this year's budget, you get less next year. So every department goes out of its way to spend every dime it receives, whether or not it needs to. And as an idiotic bonus, if they make a case for how they needed all the crap they overspent for the year before, they can actually receive more money in next year's budget. This is how $700 hammers and overpaid entry level employees happen. Now, most bottom line state employees make in the $24/hour range. I'd love to make that much. So, when Arnold's plan was to cut the wages of state employees, my first thought was, "yeah". Cut the pay of Mayors, city attorneys, state legislators, county commissioners, and all the countless levels of management and middle management. We could save a fortune! But that's not what he's doing. Keep in mind, this is the same governor who allowed a tax loophole for owners of Yachts and private jets to go through, and to continue to exist. Arnold's brilliant idea is to borrow money from the lowest level of state employees by lowering their wages to minimum wage. It won't be California's $8/hour minimum wage, but the federal minimum wage of $6.55. He also laid off thousands of temporary and seasonal workers, which is probably justified. But, back to the minimum wage. While I agree that $24/hour is a luxurious amount for an entry level state employee to make, he's lowering 200,000 state employees all the way down to $6.55/hour. If any of you currently or have ever lived in California, you know that $6.55/hour is enough only if you happen to be a teenager still living at home. I could make substantially more than $6.55/hour on unemployment benefits. It is simply not possible to live in California for that much. Not even close. As a single guy with a paid for car, I had trouble surviving on $9/hour with the job I had when I first moved here 8 years and much inflation ago.

Why this is not logical, even when throwing ethics and morals out the window:
1. Most of the 200,000 state employees who's wages will be cut will now be forced to supplement their income through state programs such as welfare and food stamps, thus causing a sharp increase in the cost of those programs that will mostly offset the savings from the wage cut.
2. It defies the state constitution, and is therefore illegal, to pay employees at below the state minimum wage.

Enter state controller John Chiang. Chiang just said "No" to Arnold. It's his job to cut the paychecks to all the state employees, and he said he wouldn't follow the executive order.
Part of Chiang's response to the Governator:

To the extent that the Order attempts to govern the constitutional duties for which I was independently elected to perform and, because it is based on faulty legal and factual premises, I will not comply with the Order.

There will now ensue a constitutional showdown between the state's head elected official, and the state's other legislative branches stemming from an executive order that presumes power that the head executive does not possess, to simply ignore constitutional law. Sound familiar?

This is why we must break the grip Republicans have on our government. I'm not necessarily opposed to many of the things that Republicans are supposed to stand for, and have traditionally stood for, such as smaller government with less spending. But they don't stand for those things any more. They may occasionally shrink some aspects of the government, but it's only so they can expand law enforcement and the military, the tools of control. They became so dangerously powerful in the past decade that they no longer even tried to hide their ignoring of the constitution and even breaking the law with illegal wiretaps and programs such as Rendition, which leads to unconstitutional (but allowed under the "patriot" act) detention (without representation) and torture. The fundamental building blocks of our country are being systematically dismantled. The disturbing thing is how they make no effort to hide it. The media is no help, of course, but that's a rant for another time.

For now, score a victory for the people by John Chiang. May it be the first of many.